


Lost

by Molly



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-03
Updated: 2011-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-17 13:17:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Molly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Rodney gets lost.</em> (Note: If you watch SG-1, and you remember Crystal Skull, then you know where I'm starting from, in a vague and not really canonical way. If you don't, that's ok, you don't really need to. Because, see...they find this crystal skull, and...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost

**Author's Note:**

> If you watch SG-1, and you remember Crystal Skull, then you know where I'm starting from, in a vague and not really canonical way. If you don't, that's ok, you don't really need to. Because, see...they find this crystal skull, and...

"Hey," Sheppard says from across the room, "don't touch that crystal sk--"

He runs, dives, hits Rodney in the stomach with his head and wraps his arms tight around Rodney's middle. Except Rodney never feels the impact. He never feels Sheppard's arms around him, which leads to a brief flash of surprise, confusion, and regret. That would have been a pretty nice thing to feel.

Regret. That's the last thing Rodney remembers, before the lights.

* * *

So the lights come, so blinding he's knocked back, and they spin around him and around and around. It's kind of like getting swarmed by fireflies, except they pass right through him and don't even seem to notice. Something, something, makes him try to crawl back to the skull, put his hands back on it; something about the slick, fluid feel of it under his fingertips, the flash of gold warmth in its eyes. Eye sockets, really, Rodney reminds himself, and is creeped out enough by that thought that he stays where he is.

Sheppard is lying on the floor a few feet off, head up and spinning like he's possessed. Rodney was supposed to be under him, he imagines, safe from the completely harmless fireflies. Another twinge of sadness, and also irritation, because hello. It's not like Rodney was a small target, or even a moving target at that point, and Sheppard missed. Some hero.

He glares at Sheppard, and says, "Oh, thank you, very nice. I feel completely protected. Some hero you turned out to be," and waits for Sheppard to turn around and roll his eyes.

But Sheppard doesn't, because he can't hear Rodney, and he can't see Rodney, and when that understanding sinks in Rodney feels himself slipping, slipping, looks down at himself and sees himself, can touch and hear and smell himself, but he's suddenly not at all sure he's really there.

* * *

Sheppard carefully packs up the skull and takes it back to Rodney's lab, where he lays it in front of Zelenka and says, "Rodney's gone. I think this thing ate him. Get him back for me, would you?"

Zelenka looks up. His eyes are huge and red-rimmed, and Rodney has told him time and time again that he has to sleep, but Zelenka doesn't listen. He never listens. And now there's a huge, majorly important project in front of him and he won't be at his best because he's exhausted and sleep-deprived and tired and also stupid.

"I will do what I can," Zelenka promises, and Rodney nearly faints from relief. Because tired, sleep-deprived, exhausted and stupid, Zelenka's still smarter than any ten other people in the city.

As long as Rodney himself isn't one of the ten.

* * *

But Zelenka doesn't fix it. Rodney walks the halls of Atlantis like a ghost. Sometimes he thinks he's dead; sometimes he thinks maybe he accidentally ascended, and just doesn't know what to do. Sometimes he thinks he can hear others with him, near him, whispering past him in the darknesses of the city, unseen. He can't sleep, because he's never tired. He doesn't eat, because he's never hungry. He tries to stay where people are, because where people are, he still feels real.

Most of the time.

* * *

A week has passed, and Zelenka still hasn't fixed it. Rodney follows Sheppard, and Sheppard spends hours watching Zelenka in the lab. When Zelenka sleeps -- when he has to -- Sheppard sits in front of the skull and stares into its eyes. Rodney wants to tell him to stop, because he doesn't want Sheppard gone, too -- what if Sheppard vanishes to some other in-between, where Zelenka can't find him and Rodney can't find him either? What if Sheppard becomes one of the whispers in the silent places, what if what if what if

The horror of that thought whites Rodney out and he's gone.

  


* * *

gone

  


* * *

until some time later, he's not sure how much later, he's there again. He's in the gate room, and Teyla and Ford and Elizabeth and Zelenka and Sheppard are all there. Everyone is there. There's music, and they say things about him, wonderful things he hears from a distance he can't cross. There are tears on John's face, tracks where tears have been, and Rodney feels himself wanting to share them but he can't. There are tears on many of the faces Rodney can see, but Rodney himself can't cry. Part of him is missing.

* * *

The skull took it. The skull. He doesn't know how. He can't tell how. Part of him, the part of him that makes him real, is locked up inside its crystal matrix. Tied to it. And part of him is tied to the world. Rodney exists in the middle ground, like a figment of his own imagination.

* * *

Two weeks. Three. A month. Rodney watches the calendars. He has no other way to mark the time. The skull sits on the corner of a table in the lab in its insulated box. Sometimes John comes to look at it. Lately, he can't meet its eyes.

He's there now. The city is dark. Zelenka sleeps, on a cot near the door. Now, Zelenka sleeps. Now, when he can't hear Rodney, he finally listens.

John opens the box, and the skull looks up at him with empty crystalline eyes. No warmth there now, no golden glow. No firefly lightshow here. John doesn't do anything. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't meet the skull's eyes. Rodney hunches down in front of John and looks at him, looks into him, but John doesn't meet Rodney's eyes, either. John leans over, arms wrapped around his middle, eyes clamped shut, mouth twisted. He's done whatever crying he had to do, so he doesn't make a sound.

Rodney does. He makes a sound he's never made before, short and sharp, tearing in his throat. He reaches out, but he can't touch. Regret.

Rodney moves. He can still move. He moves in. He moves inside, he settles, and looks out of John's eyes, and makes John look at the skull. He doesn't know how he does it. He doesn't know how it works. But John moves when Rodney moves, he reaches for the skull when Rodney reaches, he eases it out of the foam insulation it's wrapped in and cradles it in his hands. Rodney can't feel it, but he can almost feel John feeling it. He can feel John.

He moves. John moves. Together, they walk into the dark.

Hallways and hallways and hallways. Rodney doesn't remember the way. John does. At first Rodney moved John, but now John is moving Rodney. John carries him, not knowing that he carries him. They walk and walk, and finally come to the room, to the pedestal, and John sets the skull on the pedestal and it locks into place with a soft, barely audible click.

John steps away. Rodney doesn't. Rodney stares at the skull. John doesn't. John sits on the floor, puts his back against the wall, puts his head in his hands, and waits.

Rodney doesn't. Rodney steps forward and stands in front of the skull. He puts his hands on the skull and looks into its eyes and yes, the warmth is there, yes, the flash of gold, the flashes of light, the fireflies. The fireflies. The skull is slick and fluid under his hands.

Another flash, and Rodney is blinded. He falls. He hits the floor, and it hurts. His elbow hurts and his leg hurts and his head hurts and he feels it all. He rolls over and sits up and John is sitting against the wall with his head in his hands but he's looking at Rodney now. He's looking right at him.

John jerks, moves, half-stumbles across the floor until his hands are on Rodney's face, and Rodney can feel them, skin against skin, John's hands on his cheeks, in his hair, wrapping around his shoulders. John pulls him up to his knees and pulls him in and clutches him, arms going around Rodney's body like a vise. He doesn't let go. Rodney laughs into John's neck and he can smell John, sweat and soap. He's there. He's real.

"You're here," John says, pushing back to look at Rodney. There's a look on John's face like he thinks he might be lying. "You're here."

"I'm here."

"How did you get here?"

Rodney shakes his head. He doesn't know. He doesn't care. The skull is behind him and he's never looking behind him again. He's only looking at John.

"Are you okay?" John has his hands on Rodney's shoulders again, and gives him a shake. "Are you?"

"I'm fine." Rodney laughs a little and puts his hands on John's face. "I don't have any regrets."

  
.end


End file.
